Some Billy Joel enthusiasts place the strain on CBS right after it bungled its broadcast of the singer’s Madison Sq. Garden milestone clearly show around the weekend.
CBS aired “The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden” on Sunday night. The distinctive offered viewers a appear inside the celebratory March 28 concert, portion of the singer-songwriter’s historic residency at the New York Metropolis venue. In the 90-minute particular, Joel, 74, done his multiplatinum hits for 1000’s of attendees who swayed and bobbed along to his upbeat tunes.
For some at-home-viewers, nevertheless, the Sunday broadcast finished a few minutes too early. Particularly, the telecast abruptly lower to black as the New York-born Joel sang the remaining verse of the night’s closing track: “Piano Person.”
In video clips posted on X (formerly Twitter), numerous viewers shared clips of Joel singing the lyric “and the microphone smells like beer” right before the broadcast pivots to nearby CBS news coverage.
“Daaaang @CBS you did not have to do the piano guy Billy Joel like that,” singer Sid Kingsley tweeted. “He was just having to the excellent section.”
“IDK whose choice it was to reduce off the close of the #BillyJoel concert for community information (Soon after starting 30 min late!) but it is unacceptable,” wrote a further enthusiast. “#BillyJoel100 is an iconic second in background, & all we desired to do was ‘forget about life for a while’ & you destroyed it. @CBS @cbschicago.”
The broadcast mishap encouraged jokes and GIF reactions shading CBS, and prompted some admirers to share what other viewers missed. One X user shared live performance footage of Joel’s followers singing a capella to “Piano Guy,” although it’s unclear no matter whether the video clip was from the 100th Yard show.
In a assertion shared with The Instances on Monday, CBS mentioned that the controversial cutaway was due to a “programming timing error” and influenced broadcasts in the Japanese and Central time zones.
“We apologize to Mr. Joel, his enthusiasts, our affiliated stations, and our viewers whose viewing encounter was interrupted through the last track,” the assertion said.
As a end result of the disruption, as effectively as “overwhelming demand from [Joel’s] legion of followers,” CBS explained, it will rebroadcast the singer’s milestone concert “in its entirety” on Friday at 9 p.m. nearby time.
A agent for Joel did not give more comment.
Enthusiasts hoping to relive the moment right before Friday can do so by streaming “The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden” in its entirety on Paramount+.
The Grammy winner will end his ten years-lengthy Madison Square Backyard residency later on this year, he introduced final June.
“It’s really hard to consider that we’ve been capable to do this for 10 decades,” Joel said in the course of a press conference. “I didn’t know how extensive it was likely to previous.”
He added: “I’m now 74, I’ll be 75 next year. Appears like a pleasant variety.”
Given that 2014, Joel has done at the Back garden every single thirty day period. It was a gig that was supposed to proceed only until demand from customers fell off. But that under no circumstances occurred.
Joel’s residency will conclude in July with his 150th lifetime effectiveness at the location, which has previously bought out.
“There are a ton of venues out there but only a person Madison Square Backyard,” he claimed in 2015, “my household away from residence.”
